To See You Alive
by stupidityisdangerous
Summary: "It's been three and a half years. 1,277 days. 106 months. And yet she still isn't free." Five years after El's psychical escape from Dr. Brenner and the horrors of Hawkins Lab, she is still haunted by the terrors her past. One morning, in a nightmare-ridden haze, she decides to rid her body of her past once and for all, nearly bleeding out and killing herself in the process.


**A/N: Special thanks to Mary (midnightdaemons on Tumblr) for pre-reading, supporting me, and being a babe as always. Make sure to check out her latest story, Aquamarine, if you're into Byeler and looking for a fluffy one-shot to swoon over.**

 **Also, specials thanks to Harley (backstagepast on Tumblr) for teaching me about queerbaiting, and reassuring me that close female friendship is normal, despite what the media likes to say. She's not in this fandom, but she knows more about El and Max's relationship than I do, and I write it on a normal basis.**

 **The title for this story was inspired by the lyrics of Flatsound's "To See You Alive," a dark and haunting folk song about self-harm, depression, suicide, and the pain of mental illness in relationships. I have been listening to it over and over since I discovered it a few days ago, and highly recommend it as the soundtrack to this one shot.**

* * *

 **TO SEE YOU ALIVE**

 _by stupidityisdangerous_

* * *

 **TRIGGER WARNING:**

 **THIS STORY CONTAINS DARK AND GRAPHIC SCENES OF CUTTING AS A FORM OF SELF HARM, AND MENTIONS OF CHILD EMOTIONAL, MENTAL, AND PSYCHICAL ABUSE, ALONG WITH MENTIONS AND IMPLIED SCENES OF UNDERAGE SEX AMONGST CONSENTING INDIVIDUALS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**

* * *

It's been three and a half years. 1,277 days. 106 months. And yet she still isn't free.

Not with a family, not with a birth certificate, not with report cards and school projects and class rosters with her name on them.

Not with Mike, only a twenty-minute drive away, and reachable within minutes through the telephone Hopper had put into her bedroom for her fifteenth birthday.

Because Brenner is still here. He is still in her dreams, telling her how wounded and useless she is under his control, giving her illnesses that pills and therapy visits and hours and hours of conversations on her _trauma_ cannot fix. He is with her when she walks from class to class; when she kisses Mike in their special spot, by the bike rack, hidden behind the trunk of a big, sturdy, oak tree that provides shade from the Indiana heat; when they lie, naked and vulnerable beside each other under the navy blue protection of his Star Wars sheets; when she arrives home in the wee hours of the morning; when Hopper gives her a goodbye kiss before driving himself and Joyce to work in his tan police van.

He is always there, taunting her, reducing her to just a number, marking her body with her slave name.

 _Once upon a time, she knew nothing else._

 _And now, she wants to never know it again._

The house is empty. Everyone is at work, Hopper bending over a dull case file in the warmth of his office, Joyce scanning unimportant everyday items from behind the counter of Melvald's, Will soaking bags of cheap, yellow popcorn with artificial butter.

She's locked herself in the bathroom. She's leaning over the porcelain white of their bathroom counter, and she's stripped down to nothing but her lacy white panties and her small, nude t-shirt bra.

Her face is streaked with tears, and her hair is dirty and matted, unwashed and neglected but tangled from her head thrashing across her bed as the nightmares came and went.

In her right hand is the razor of Hopper's stainless steel safety razor.

On her left wrist, is the one thing she wants to rid herself of.

She bites her lip, and yelps, as the sharp blade rips through her flesh like scissors on printer paper, and blood leaks down her hand and drops into the sink.

In her bedroom across the hall, her turquoise and hot pink telephone rings a shrill, obnoxious, ring, and Mike Wheeler goes to voicemail, again.

He's been calling nonstop, since she kicked him out of her bed this morning, upset after a nightmare.

" _You have a wound, Eleven, a terrible wound."_

She jams the razor in again and screams through gritted teeth as the cut becomes deeper and the gash further separates the boxy black numbers.

Her shaking hands drop the razor into the blood-splattered sink, and she falls to the floor, clutching her arm and sobbing deeply as she hears Mike's message from across the hall.

" _El? It's Mike again. I'm worried about you. Please call me back. Just...talk to me. I'll try my best to understand."_ He sucks in a deep breath and chokes on his own sobs. " _If you don't call back in five minutes, I'm coming over."_

The blood is gushing faster than the water of the stream feeding into the quarry, and she lets out a pathetic whine as the anxiety hits and she realizes that maybe she's gone too deep.

The clean white rug beneath her feet is stained, and she lies on it in a sad heap, breathing heavily while the red splotches become more and more.

 _The bleeding won't stop._

The light in the bathroom seems too bright, and she begins to see spots.

* * *

In the Wheelers' family car, Mike is driving as fast as he possibly can.

He zips through the streets of Hawkins, passing stop signs and traffic lights without pause, not caring about the law or the speed limit, only caring about El, and what she may have done to herself after the nightmare drove her away from him.

 _Her nightmares have been so bad lately._

He's three blocks away from the Hoppers'/Byers' modest three-bedroom in uptown Hawkins when he sees the police lights in his rearview mirror and he curses to himself as they yell at him through open windows to pull over.

It's Steve and Callahan, swerving to keep up with him.

As though on autopilot, he pulls over, and rolls down his window, his heart beating at impossible speeds inside his chest and his hands shaking on the steering wheel.

Inside the cop car, Officer Steve Harrington himself puts his hand on Callahan's chest. "Holy shit, is that the Wheeler car?"

He approaches the open window and has barely opened his mouth, when Mike, nearing hysterical, starts yelling at him.

"Call Hop!" He says. "Tell him he needs to come _right now_!" His eyes are red and puffy, his face almost as vibrant, and Steve is taken aback as he stares into the face of a boy he knows so well, gone mad with worry. "El is in danger! She might be dying as we speak—"

Callahan, hearing the urgent screams of the seventeen-year-old boy he recognizes as Hopper's girl's boyfriend, takes to his police radio without hesitation.

" _Chief_! We're on the corner of North Hampton and Beverly Drive! Steve's pulled over the speeder, and it appears Wheeler's the driver. He's hysterical. I suggest you get down here _ASAP_. Over."

* * *

When Hopper arrives, the ambulance is already there.

Mike is sitting on the porch, covered and shaking in a shock blanket while Steve sits beside him and Callahan waits nervously, the butt of a cigarette in between his lips.

Paramedics are carrying El from the house on a stretcher, and he sees immediately the large, sterile white bandage wrapped around her left arm, right where her 011 tattoo is. An oxygen mask covers her unconscious face, and a sheet covers her almost nude body.

Within seconds, he is swarmed by paramedics and questions are being thrown in his face.

He is lead into the ambulance, along with a flustered Wheeler who looks like he might pass out himself, and the ride is the longest of his life.

Halfway through, Mike has a panic attack, and Hopper watches as if in a dream while an oxygen mask is placed over his face as well and a paramedic guides him through breathing.

" _Breathe with me. In...out...in..."_

* * *

The hospital room is cold and white. She's wearing a hospital gown, her nipples erect and visible through the thin, patterned fabric, and her veins an eery purple underneath her pale, sickly skin.

A large bandage covers her left arm from the wrist to the forearm and is wrapped tightly to protect the stitches over her 011 tattoo from herself. A drain is placed under the bandage, and a heart monitor shows her pulse on the machine beside her.

She gained back her consciousness in the ambulance, shortly after Wheeler's panic attack hit, and now she sits, half-lidded eyes exhausted and body drained as he sits beside her in the hospital bed, clutching her small right hand in his large ones.

Hopper watches from a chair by the doorway, Will standing behind him, still as a statue, as Joyce strokes El's curls back from her forehead.

None of them are very fond of hospitals, although they don't have a choice.

The doctors think it's a self-harm episode, that she cut herself with a razor and then passed out in a vasovagal episode from the shock after she realized how much she was bleeding.

"You're okay now," Joyce says quietly. "You're safe. We're all here. Nothing can hurt you." She's been repeating this over and over like a mantra, and El shakes under her soothing hands, still in shock.

"Dad," she croaks hoarsely, and Hopper is at her side in seconds, holding her outstretched good hand. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, kid," he says, "it's not your fault. I—"

A soft knock on the door brings the family's attention to the doctor standing in the doorway, and Will strays away from the door, grabbing ahold of his mother.

"Pardon me," the doctor says. "I'm Dr. Deetz. I'm here to do a psychiatric evaluation of the patient"—he checks the name on his clipboard—"Jane Hopper. My apologies, but the family is going to need to temporarily exit the room."

El opens her mouth in protest, and Joyce leans forward, cupping the girl's young face in her hands. "It'll only take a minute. I promise. We'll be right outside the door."

Reluctantly, Mike removes himself from the hospital bed and places a kiss on her forehead. Hopper ruffles her hair, and Will gives her a hug.

"Just outside the door, kid. No need to worry."

* * *

The night is dark and cold. Footsteps of the nurses, checking on her every fifteen minutes, and the ticking of the clock outside her room create a haunting melody that plays over and over in a loop throughout her night long stay.

There'll be no psych ward stay. No doctors with her every night.

Just an emergency therapy visit tomorrow, and an altercation on her medication.

 _Post-traumatic stress disorder, night terrors, insomnia, depression, anxiety._

Brenner's hold on her is only tighter.

She wishes she had never done it. She wishes she was in bed with Mike again, sleeping off a night of lovemaking and night terrors, awakening terrified but being comforted by him in the light coming through her bedroom window.

 _She wishes she'd let him stay._

* * *

The drive home to Hawkins from Roanne County Hospital is long and silent. Hopper came to get her alone. He's taking the week off from work to watch her.

The blazing, summer heat makes the thin fabric of her horizontally striped tank top stick to her chest and the hot leather seat burns the backs of her thighs under her loose, short jean shorts.

Hopper brought her the outfit this morning, along with her toothbrush, comb, and Caboodles filled with makeup, and watched while she got ready in the hospital room.

She wishes he'd brought her something long-sleeved, as the heat isn't enough to make her not want to cover the fresh bandage on her arm. El seems to be doing a lot of wishing lately.

* * *

Max's gentle fingers sting as they trace the developing scar where El's stitches were until yesterday. It's thick but short and horizontal, the tattoo beneath it barely visible, and the skin is still pink and sensitive as it heals.

" _Shit."_

She sits on El's bed, her long, wavy, ginger hair pulled back in a long simple braid, and her face, arms, and legs splattered with freckles from the past month spent outside in the sun. The bright red marks of a sunburn cover her cheeks, and a fresh, deep purple bruise swells under her bloodshot right eye. A loose, oversized Jane's Addiction t-shirt hangs over the waist of her high waisted denim shorts, and a tattoo choker style bracelet is around her ankle, above her bare feet and her electric blue painted toenails.

El is topless, the deep navy blue Columbia University sweatshirt she stole from Mike stripped and lain aside to allow Max to see what she's done to herself. The heat is so much, she didn't even bother to wear a top underneath the pullover hoodie, and she is completely vulnerable. Nothing but her loose, leisurely sports bra and her naked forearm.

Max pulls her close, the coolness of her t-shirt pressing against the drying sweat on El's bare chest, and rests her bruised face on the other girl's shoulder.

There is nothing peculiar about this situation. Three years of daily undressed locker conversations have made nudity nothing out of the ordinary for the two girls, and Max has all too often shown El the marks on her body, left behind from late night fights with her stepfather and failed coping mechanisms that only made her feel worse.

Feeling safe for the first time in days, El buries her face deeper into Max's hair, inhaling the calming scent of her vanilla shampoo.

"I'm glad you're okay," Max says, rubbing the small of her back.

"Me too." Remembering the other girl's condition, El pulls away to look into Max's bright, blue eyes and runs a thumb over her cheek. "What happened?"

She hasn't gotten a good look until now, but Max's right eye is completely bloodshot, the white of her eye replaced by a red that sends a shiver down El's spine, and the purple bruise is raised, her undereye and cheek swelling greatly.

"Neil came home and dinner wasn't ready," she smiles to herself sadly. "Mom and I were dancing instead of cooking." There's no point in making excuses, it's impossible to lie to El, she always sees right through.

El's eyebrows raise in concern. "Is your mom okay?"

Max looks at her hands, fiddling her thumbs. "I guess." She looks out El's bedroom window at the end of her bed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay." El takes Max's hands in hers, tracing her palms in circles with her thumbs. Looking down into her lap, she realizes just how fuzzy the stubble on her legs has gotten. Despite the seriousness of the situation, she giggles, and Max looks at her, confused. "You know I'm not allowed to use a knife now?" Max just continues to look at her, bemused, although the edges of a smile begin to form on her lips just the same from the other girl's suddenly erratic energy.

El continues, "The doctors told Chief I'm not allowed around anything I can hurt myself with." She brushes her leg against the bare skin of Max's arm, and the ginger recoils.

El giggles louder at her reaction. "I can't shave my legs, or use perfume, or nail polish, or anything. They tried to tell Hopper I shouldn't be allowed to have shoelaces in my sneakers, and he told them that was ridiculous. When I came back from the hospital, Joyce had gone through the _whole house_ and even my bras with longer straps have all of a sudden gone missing." El is nearly cackling now, and Max has begun to laugh with her.

For a minute, they just laugh, their hysterical cackles filling the air like bird calls in early spring, and when a concerned Hopper opens the door to check on them and sees El topless and Max snorting with laughter, he just stares for a moment in shock, only making the girls laugh harder. _Maybe a week in the house was too much time alone._

"Why don't you two go see a movie or something?" He asks, averting his eyes in discomfort from El's scarred arm and black Calvin Klein sports bra.

Max, now red with embarrassment herself, answers while El pulls her sweatshirt back over her head. "Sure, I'd love that." She turns to El, who is struggling to regain seriousness. "Do you have any money? All I have is two dollars."

Hopper sighs, rubbing his forehead as El continues to snicker to herself. "I'll pay."

The girls cheer in overenthusiastic excitement, and when he drops them off in front of the Hawk ten minutes later, El and Max are still exchanging humorous glances.

* * *

After the movie— _Bull Durham_ , a movie Max had been dying to see but which none of the boys in the party had any interest in—the girls ride to the Palace and meet up with the boys.

They blow the last three dollars leftover from Hopper's generous funding to play _Dragon's Lair_ and by the end of the afternoon, Max has once again beat her high score and remained number one on the top players' list.

" _Fuck yeah!"_ Dustin practically screams, earning a glare from the newest acne ridden teen to replace Keith, and a high five from MADMAX herself.

Will is grinning so wide El thinks she can see every tooth in his mouth, and Mike claps Max loudly on the back as Lucas pumps his fists.

Afterwards, they head to the Wheelers, feasting on ice cream Mike finds in the freezer—much to the annoyance of Nancy, who's visiting from college in New York City for summer break—and play an especially intense game of _D &D _before seven-year-old Holly appears at the top of the stairs, yelling down, "Mom says dinner's almost ready!"

"I better get going," Max says, waving the party goodbye. Unlike Billy, a car wasn't in the cards for her sixteenth birthday, and at seventeen, Max still rides a skateboard or the bus everywhere she goes. She gives El one last hug, and whispers in her ear, "stay safe, okay?"

Before El can say okay back, the other girl is already bounding up the stairs, her long red braid whipping behind her.

"I should get going, too," Lucas says, and El sniggers as she notices his eyes taking in Max's ass.

"Me, too," Dustin says, grabbing Mike's wrist to check his calculator watch. "Steve will be getting me soon." He bounds up the stairs behind Lucas, and Mike, El, and Will burst out laughing as they hear Dustin exclaim from the second floor, " _Ew!_ At least wait until we get outside first before you guys start eating each other's faces!" It's a good five minutes before any of the remaining members of the party are able to remain calm, the subject of Max and Lucas's PDA too obvious and the past week of stress making them eager for a good laugh.

Will turns towards his best friend and stepsister, his face still burning and his side tight from laughing so hard, and realizes that they need some alone time together. Even though Jonathan is just upstairs with Nancy, and Will knows they can depart home anytime they like, he makes a lame excuse to leave before practically sprinting up the stairs. "I need to...um...ask Jonathan about... _something_."

Once alone, El scoots her chair at the game table closer to Mike, and his arms tighten around her instinctively. He rests his chin on her head of curls, and she snuggles into his chest.

For a moment, they just sit in a comfortable silence, enjoying each other's company without doctors, parents, or friends around to watch them. She knows it's only been a week, but it feels like decades, and her heart aches with the pain of missing him, even though he's right beside her. She wishes she could stay here, frozen in this moment, enjoying the safety of this place.

She turns around and kisses him deeply, and he can feel his body responding immediately. _A week is a_ long time _for a teenaged boy_.

 _She's been through a lot recently,_ he scolds himself, _just think of your grandma naked._

No such luck, as within seconds a hand is there, and it's definitely not that of his Nana.

He stifles a groan and El grins, loving the control she has over him. She can already feel his large hands slipping up his sweatshirt, clutching her small, perky—

"Michael!" Karen Wheeler calls down the stairs, and El and Mike separate in seconds, knocking down a chair as Mike jumps out of his seat. "Is everything alright down there?"

They can hear Karen's footsteps as she comes down the stairs and they come into her line of vision, and Mike's thinking is rapid now, _nakedgrandmanakedgrandma._

"Dinner's ready," Karen says, eyeing the chair on the floor with annoyance. "Say goodbye to Jane."

"Bye, Mike," El says, standing up on the tippy toes of her black and white Converse and giving him a peck on the cheek. Behind his back, she squeezes his ass and Mike swears he might have a heart attack right then and there, in front of his mother.

El turns to Karen sweetly before leaving. "Bye, Mrs. Wheeler."

The ride home, she is so spaced out she barely hears the Clash blaring from Jonathan's car speakers.

* * *

She's in her room, braiding her wild curls for the night when she hears the quiet tap on her bedroom window. She smiles, striding over in her silky floral robe and pushing open the screen.

Mike steps awkwardly into her room, his tall lanky body barely fitting through the small opening. He grins, leaning in for a kiss and she puts a finger to his lips, pulling him towards her bed. She checks the small digital alarm clock on her nightstand before pushing him slowly onto the bed, straddling his thin hips.

"You just missed Hopper," she teases, pushing down his hands as he attempts to touch her.

His eyes travel towards her closed bedroom door anxiously, and she rolls her eyes. "Relax. Joyce doesn't come and check on me until nine-thirty. That gives us plenty of time."

She's missed his body, but she missed him more. And seeing the way he looks at her, she knows that he missed her too.

Afterwards, they lie beside each other in her bed. The light of the summer evening outside her window falls across her naked side and warms her delicate skin, highlighting the pink marks of his hurried kisses.

He strokes her hair with his long thin fingers, feeling the softness of her braid and the peach fuzz at the nape of her neck.

"It's such a beautiful sight," he says, and a tear slides sideways down his lightly freckled face, dripping over his long pale nose and onto the soft pink of her sheets.

"What?" She asks, barely a whisper.

"To see you alive."

* * *

 **A/N: Writing smut was something I never wanted nor intended to do—especially with the sensitive topic and the age of the characters in this story—so if you were looking forward to that, I'm sorry. And if you were absolutely praying it would not happen, I hope I was as vague as I hoped to be.**

 **The idea for this story is not exactly an original one, as fics dealing with El's "011" tattoo have been published over and over again since the series first premiered, and have dealt with her covering, tattooing, and self-harming over it, but of the few I have read, I'm pretty sure mine is the darkest, so yeah, sorry about that.**

 **Roanne County—according to the Stranger Things wiki and the show itself—is the county Hawkins is in. North Hampton and Beverly Drive, however, are completely made-up Hawkins streets, as I'm much too tired to pay that much attention to detail. Beverly Drive is named after Beverly Marsh from Stephen King's IT though, as I couldn't resist.**

 **Psychiatric evaluation is required by the U.S. to be given to any patient entered into the emergency room or hospital due to any sort of self-destructive behavior, and despite popular belief, in modern society, it is actually very hard to get admitted into a psychiatric ward or any sort of mental health institution without proper reasoning.**

 **A vasovagal episode is a sudden drop in heart rate and blood pressure leading to fainting and is usually caused** in **reaction to an extremely stressful trigger.**

 **A Caboodles is a popular cosmetics bag popular in the late 80s and first released in 1987. The vintage "Teen" model of the product is shaped somewhat like an elementary school pencil box and has fold-out compartments like that of a fishing tackle box. Ulta, Urban Outfitters, Amazon, Target, and Walmart all still sell them, and Olympic Gold Medalist Simone Biles is their current spokesperson. Considering El's interest in makeup towards the end of Season 2 and Hopper's tendency to spoil her, I figured she would have one.**

 **Jane's Addiction is an American rock band from Los Angeles that formed in 1985. They released their first studio album Nothing's Shocking in 1988 and their name along with songs "Had A Dad" and "Ted, Just Admit It..." made me think they'd be a good fit for this story and what I assume would be Max's music tastes.**

 **Calvin Klein is a world-famous American fashion designer born in 1942, best known for his underclothes, especially his classic black sports bra, which is possibly the most unsupportive but comfortable bra in the world.**

 **Bull Durham is a romantic comedy sports movie released in June 1988. It follows the story of veteran baseball player "Crash" Davis (Kevin Costner) and baseball groupie Annie Savoy (Susan Sarandon) as Crash attempts to prepare rookie pitcher Ebby Calvin "Nuke" Laloosh (Tim Robbins) for the major leagues. I know nothing about baseball and haven't seen this movie, but it seemed right up Max and El's ally, and I doubt any of the boys would be interested in a sports rom-com.**

 **Classic Winona Ryder movies Beetlejuice and Heathers were also released in 1988, but I doubt any of the party would be into anything especially violent or creepy after all the horrifying shit they've seen irl** **, so Dr. Deetz is named after Winona's character Lydia Deetz in Beetlejuice as a subtle nod to her.**

 **I apologize for any grammatical or plot errors in the publication of this story, I was very tired when I finished and posted it, but I did the best I could.**


End file.
